JERUSALEM (AP)  Israeli intelligence overplayed the threat posed by Iraq and reinforced the U.S. and British assessment that Saddam Hussein had large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, a retired Israeli general said Thursday.

The Israeli assessment may have been colored by politics, including a desire to see the Iraqi leader toppled, said Shlomo Brom, who was a senior Israeli military intelligence officer and is now a researcher with Israel's top strategic think tank.

Brom stopped short of accusing Israeli intelligence officials of intentionally misleading Britain and the United States.

His assertions could, however, undermine the reputation of the Israeli intelligence service, one of the most respected in the world.

The Israeli military declined comment, while other experts said Brom was exaggerating.

Although no weapons of mass destruction have been found, U.S. and British policy-makers are sticking by their contention that Saddam's regime possessed the weapons and threatened world peace. Public debate continues in both countries over the claims.

In an article in Strategic Assessment, a publication of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Brom said weapons of mass destruction probably would not be found in significant quantities in Iraq.

He said Israeli intelligence overplayed the potential danger before the war. Based on intelligence warnings that a U.S.-led invasion could trigger an Iraqi missile attack on Israel, possibly with chemical or biological weapons, the Israeli military ordered citizens to update their gas mask kits. As the war began, the military told Israelis to prepare for an imminent attack and carry the masks with them everywhere.

Israelis largely ignored the order, and even Cabinet ministers were seen without the kits. In the end, Iraq did not fire missiles at Israel.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam's forces fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel, and all had conventional warheads, causing considerable damage but few casualties.

Brom told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that "Israeli intelligence was a full partner with the United States and Britain in developing a false picture of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capability."

He said Israeli intelligence "badly overestimated the Iraqi threat to Israel and reinforced the American and British belief that the weapons existed."

Brom said the Israeli assessment may have been influenced by politics. "Israel has no reason to regret the outcome of the war in Iraq," he wrote, noting Saddam was an implacable enemy.

Brom ended his 25-year military career in 1998. Career officers in Israel traditionally maintain close ties with military colleagues after their retirement.

Yossi Sarid, an opposition member of parliament, demanded an inquiry. "If political factors interfere with intelligence assessments, heaven help us. That is the greatest danger," he told Israel Radio, adding that Israel's credibility could suffer.

"When we present dire information about Iran's arming itself with nuclear weapons, who's going to take us seriously? They can say, 'You exaggerated about Iraq, too,'" Sarid said.

Others argued Brom overstated the case.

Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said there was a failure by all Western intelligence agencies in assessing the Iraq threat, but "to say that Israel is the prime mover in this is extremely farfetched."

Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat research center at Bar-Illan University near Tel Aviv, rejected Brom's findings and accused him of trying to bolster Israeli doves who believe the country faces no credible external threats.

"Intelligence has to warn of the worst-case scenario," Inbar said. He also questioned Brom's conclusion that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "They haven't found Saddam, either, but does that mean there was no Saddam Hussein?"

Stuart A. Cohen, a top American intelligence analyst, wrote last month that with all the evidence the U.S. government possessed, "no reasonable person could have ... reached any conclusions or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached."

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